Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 50 of 69

www.rockproducts.com ROCK products • July 2018 • 47
MANAGEMENT
Steve Schumacher is a manage-
ment consultant, trainer and public
speaker with more than 25 years of
experience in numerous industries
throughout North America, including
aggregates operations. He can be
reached at sschuma@gmail.com.
In my career, I have encountered all types of leaders in both
my personal and professional lives. For the purposes of this
article, I am defining leader as someone who leads people.
That leadership can be formal or informal, volunteer or
required, paid or unpaid. Leadership is not a box on an orga-
nizational chart or a title on a business card. Leaders have
followers, regardless of their pay grade or job title.
Years ago, I was working with a large company in the Mid-
west. One of their operations was unionized and was about
to go on strike. The employee that was most vocal and active
in pushing the union agenda caught my attention. He was
not the union steward, but when he spoke people listened,
management and hourly alike.
After some long negotiations, there was a good outcome for
both parties. I told the superintendent to watch the guy who
had been so vocal. I told him that he was clearly a leader and I
thought if he would move into management, he would be out-
standing. Over time, the superintendent convinced the guy to
move into supervision and I was right, he was outstanding as
a leader for a long time. He had the tools and the desire to be
a good leader and the superintendent was able to get him to
put those tools to work for the company as a whole.
The majority of leaders that I have dealt with, including
myself, started out as solo contributors, with no followers. If
you are in that situation currently, and would like to become
a leader, there are some foundational behaviors that you need
to have to be most effective as a leader. Certainly, anyone can
be a leader in name, depending on whether or not they have
direct reports. To be most effective as a leader, your followers
must want to follow you and also want to excel.
Have a vision. Create in your mind where you want your
organization to be. There are a lot of components to that –
revenue, productivity, quality, customer service, costs, etc.
Try to create a vision that you can verbalize in 15 seconds. It
is like the iconic elevator speech. Microsoft's vision is a good
example: "A computer on every desk and in every home."
Short and to the point, yet creates a very clear picture of
where Bill Gates wanted his company to be.
Be able to articulate your vision. There are a lot of good
ideas and visions out there in the world that never get imple-
mented because the leader was unable to communicate that
vision clearly and in an inspirational manner. If you want
Do You Have Leadership Potential?
To Be a Leader of People There Are a Few Things That Are Essential.
by Steve Schumacher
your followers to really be motivated to follow you and to
excel, you must inspire them to go after your vision. This does
not happen through email or texting. This kind of inspiration
and clarity comes from in-person communication. So, prac-
tice how you will verbalize your vision until it truly moves
people to action.
Walk the talk. Effective leaders of people do not talk out
of both sides of their mouths. They do not ask others to do
things that they would not do themselves. They know the
power of modeling and not modeling the behavior you want
from others. Show the people that follow you that you not
only believe in what you are saying, your behaviors day-to-
day match your beliefs. I have met a lot of leaders that seem
to have a "do as I say, not as I do" mode of operating. If that
is how you come across, people will not be truly inspired to
follow you.
Build trust. I have found that you can learn all of the skills
of being a leader, attend the greatest workshops in the
world, read the leadership best sellers, and emulate the
great leaders of business, and still fail without trust. Trust is
the cornerstone of everything you do as a leader. That trust
must be both ways – you trust your people and they trust
you. Trust is only built face-to-fact, through relationships as
human beings. So, make it a regular practice of spending time
with your folks to get to know them as human beings.
Empathy. True empathy means you have the ability to under-
stand how your people feel. You truly can stand in their shoes.
When you do that, it shows people that you care, and caring
leads to trust.
Being a leader of people is a huge responsibility. If that is
what you want to do, I admire you for taking on that respon-
sibility. To do it well and feel best about yourself as a leader,
do the things I have listed first and you will succeed.